RV8A to RV8 Conversion – Adding the tailwheel

Installing a tailwheel assembly into a basically finished RV-8A tail was one of the unknowns.

It looked to be fairly simple, but as I tried to wiggle the tailwheel weldment (WD409) into place without removing anything significant  that proved impossible.

Then I tried simply to start the cutout for the tube, hoping it would free up enough room for rear part for the weldment to poke through the skin and allow the piece to settle into position.  No joy there either.

Finally the last resort choice was to drill out the skin, and lift it up, clam-shell style,  enough so that the weldment would pop into place, which it did. (see below)

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Here is a rear view placing and preparing to drill.

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WD-409 painted and the AN4 bolts torqued.  The original primer got fairly scuffed in during the surgery but I’ll buff out and repaint everything before re-assembly.

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Notice reference marks made with Sharpie before I removed the skin to help in repositioning the  skin correctly.  The reason is that the bulkheads are a little flexible and will shift as the skin is re-positioned so using the the rivet holes alone as a reference isn’t good.

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Tomorrow I’ll get it zipped up (i.e. riveted) and start on the main gear install.  Sah-weeeet!

Gear tower conundrum

I was doing a final check before starting the riveting process and installing the gear towers (finally).

What I noticed was that the F802-C (the top plate on the gear tower-see photo) and it’s overlap of the F887 top longeron seem off a tad.  According to Van’s drawings, the overlapping aluminum should pretty much cover the top lonergon up to the F822 side skin.  There is between a 1/4″ to 3/8″ gap (again, see photo).  It is possible for me to “nudge” it over, but only about another 1/8″.  This would give me reasonable edge distance for riveting, but still not cover the top longeron per drawings.

I placed a thred on Van’s Air Force forums and will see what some of the other builders say and post that here.  Feel free to post here as well if you are a builder and have input.

The reason I post this is that the parts are all -1 (pre-punched parts) and it would have been difficult if not impossible for me to have anything mis-aligned due to to my error.

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March 3, 2010 Followup

I was able to get good alignment with just palm pressure, but went ahead and used ratchet straps just to hold things in place while I drilled.  Ended with 1/8″ gap between  802C and outer edge of  F887 longeron.  Good  enough.  Here is a final photo (left).

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